Hurricane Wilma tears into Mexican resorts

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Miami Dolphins fan Richard Molinary holds a sign telling Hurricane Wilma to stay away during their game against the Kansas City Chiefs at Dolphins Stadium on 21 October, 2005 in Miami, Florida.Photo: AFP

The eye of the mammoth storm, which had already killed 13
people, passed over Cozumel Island yesterday (today AEST) and was
moving north-northwest between the nearby town of Playa de Carmen
and Puerto Morelos, on the mainland.

The slow-moving hurricane was expected to pound the area for two
days as it passes over the tip of the Yucatan peninsula, raising
the possibility of catastrophic damage. It was then expected to
curl around Cuba and sprint toward Florida.

Officials didn't expect to be able to reach Cozumel until later
today or tomorrow to assess damage, but Quintana Roo Governor Felix
Gonzalez Cantu, whose state includes Cancun, said the storm had
caused "great destruction".

Pay phones jutted from floodwaters in the famed hotel zone in
Cancun, which is a narrow strip of land between the sea and a
brackish lagoon that the waves have begun to breach.

"The water is crossing over from the sea into the lagoon," said
Gonzalez Cantu, who called the destruction "tremendous".

"I never in my life wanted to live through something like this,"
said cook Guadalupe Santiago, 27, as howling winds shattered
windows and rocked the hotel where she had taken shelter. "There
are no words" to describe it, she said.

As the eye of the storm approached Cancun, officials loaded more
than 1,000 people into buses and vans and moved them to other
shelters after a downtown cultural centre suddenly became
uninhabitable, Red Cross spokesman Ricardo Portugal said.

Hotels being used as shelters pushed furniture up against
windows that weren't boarded up, and some had several centimetres
of water in rooms and hallways as rain entered through broken
windows. People at shelters slept under plastic sheeting.

Power was cut to most of the region before the storm as a
precaution.

"Tin roofing is flying through the air everywhere. Palm trees
are falling down. Signs are in the air, and cables are snapping,"
Julio Torres told The Associated Press by telephone from the Red
Cross office in Cozumel.

"Not even emergency vehicles have been able to go out on the
streets because the winds are too strong."

Officials said about 20,000 tourists were at shelters and hotels
on the mainland south of Cancun, and an estimated 10,000 to 12,000
in Cancun itself.

Instead of luxury hotel suites overlooking a turquoise sea, many
tourists found themselves sleeping on the floor of hotel ballrooms,
schools and gymnasiums reeking of sweat because there was no power
or air conditioning.

"It's going to be a long couple of days here for the Yucatan
Peninsula," said Max Mayfield, director of the US National
Hurricane Centre in Miami, Florida.

Mexican President Vicente Fox said he planned to travel to the
affected region as soon as possible.

"Now is the time to save lives and protect the population, and
we are working on that," he said. "Afterward, we will begin the
phase of helping citizens and reconstruction."

At the same time, Wilma was pounding the western tip of Cuba,
where the government evacuated more than 500,000 people.
Forecasters said Wilma could bring as much as a metre of rain in
parts of Cuba.

Waves of up to six metres crashed on the extreme westernmost tip
of Cuba and heavy rains cut off several small communities. About
7,000 residents were evacuated from the coastal fishing village of
La Coloma in Cuba's southern Pinar del Rio province.

The slow-moving storm, inching along at 6 kph was expected to
slam into Florida next week and emergency officials have issued the
first evacuation orders for the mainland. Residents of the Florida
Keys were asked to start leaving two days ago.